A Japanese steakhouse/sushi bar chain has set its sites on opening a new location in Naperville.
Wu’s House — with restaurants in Orland Park, Palos Park, Evergreen Park, Mokena and Merrillville, Indiana — has submitted plans to build a 16,263-square-foot hibachi-style restaurant on a 2-acre site at Beebe Drive and Fitness Drive, near 75th Street and Route 59.
Before proceeding, the owners must win approval to deviate from the city parking requirements. Their request will be heard by the Naperville Planning and Zoning Commission at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
City code requires eating establishments to provide 10 parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of gross floor area, meaning the proposed restaurant would need to provide 163 parking spaces.
The site plan calls for 146 parking spaces, 17 fewer than required, according to a commission memo from Kathleen Russell, community planner for the city’s Transportation, Development and Engineering department.
In their request for a variance, petitioners Chang Jin Wu and Kristy Tran supplied parking counts from their Palos Park location, which opened in 2022 and is 10% smaller than the proposed Naperville restaurant.
A parking evaluation report done by TERRA Engineering shows the south suburban restaurant’s peak parking count in July was 105 cars. Because summer revenues are 60% of those in the winter, the study said, the Palos Park location expects to use 175 parking spaces in the colder months.
With the Naperville business being slightly larger, TERRA estimates space for 197 cars would be needed at peak times, which is about 7 p.m. during winter months.
To accommodate potential overflow parking, the petitioner secured a reciprocal agreement with adjacent property owner X-Sport Fitness for the use of 50 parking spaces.
X-Sport Fitness also has a shared parking space agreement with KLA Schools, an early childhood center that’s open during the day. Russell said the peak times for the KLA and Wu’s House are unlikely to overlap.
TERRA’s report recommends Wu’s House monitor parking after the restaurant opens to ensure the main lot meets the expected demand estimates.
If it does not, the restaurant may need to consider strategies to mitigate the parking demand, such as encouraging employees to carpool, get dropped off and picked up at the site, or other strategies that would free up spaces on the peak business evenings.
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